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Abstract

In order to work successfully together, it is important that people understand each other. In global IT-projects, different team-members, with diverse cultural backgrounds, work from different locations. A consequence of this is that the synchronous, face-to-face communication that you can see in project where everyone are located in the same room, is highly restricted. The global environment add to the communication challenges and potential misunderstandings. Previous research about global IT-projects focuses a lot on the different challenges, including communication. Having worked as an IT-professional in global projects myself; I had a desire to explore what people do to mitigate the communication challenges. I did qualitative research in two of the leading countries in global IT-offshoring, Indian and the Philippines, as well as in my home country Norway and Denmark. The informants are all IT-professionals with experience from global projects. They shared their knowledge regarding what is the main communication challenges and how they overcome the challenges. The main challenges pointed to by my informants are challenges in the communication process. When communicating with people from different cultures, at a different location, there is a higher risk for misunderstandings. This can be because of problems in understanding specific accents and words, due to translation or use of native language. Challenges occur due to different use of irony and misunderstanding of non-verbal signals. Lack of proper technical infrastructure also lead to communication problems. Other challenges includes that of information overload and opportunistic behaviour. Challenges are mitigated by changing the communication process. Confirming the message, repeat it or rephrase it are three ways to do this. Improved technology also help to ease the communication. It is my hope that this thesis can help other IT-professionals with communication in global IT-projects. This thesis might act as a starting point in order to plan the communication properly.